Friday Five: Movies I want to see in 2007

A few days back, Subcorpus blogged about upcoming movies in 2007 that he wanted to watch. Being a huge fan of movies, I figured I would do the same but in the interest of not overlapping I would list ten movies that are not on his list and go for some others that I want to see. Then I decided that ten is a bit too much and squeezed the list into five. I also decided that I might just post this under a title - friday five. I have seen this done on other blogs and since I havent updated in a while thought that this kind of thing may help me post more often. So in no particular ordere here are five movies I want to see in 2007:

1. 30 Days of Night
Release Date: October 19, 2007

30 Days of Night is set in the isolated town of Barrow, Alaska, in the extreme northern hemisphere, which is plunged into complete darkness annually for an entire month. When most of the inhabitants head south for the winter, a mysterious group of strangers appear: bloodthirsty vampires, ready to take dvantage of the uninterrupted darkness to feed on the town’s residents. As the night wears on, Barrow's Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett), his estranged wife Stella (Melissa George), and an ever-shrinking group of survivors must do anything they can to last until daylight.

I have been waiting for this since I first heard about it. I even went to borders and read one of the comics. Sadly it wasnt the one this movie is based on. But the comic rocked and I am hoping this moive will too. The pic is from the actual graphic novel by Steve Niles. An official poster has not come out yet but I will post it as soon as it does come out.

2. I am Legend
Release Date: December 14, 2007


Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but even he could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable…and manmade. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in what is left of New York City…and maybe the world. But he is not alone. He is surrounded by “the Infected”—victims of the plague who have mutated into carnivorous beings who can only exist in the dark and who will devour or infect anyone or anything in their path. For three years, Neville has spent his days scavenging for food and supplies and faithfully sending out radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. All the while, the Infected lurk in the shadows, watching Neville’s every move, waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind’s last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But his blood is also what The Infected hunt, and Neville knows he is outnumbered and quickly running out of time.

I am a HUGE fan of Will Smith. He has struck the perfect balance between comedy, drama and action. The premise of this movie sound so good too. Though very similar to movies like 28 days later and Resident Evil I am hoping Will Smith will make this movie worth watching.

3. Shrek the Third
Release Date: May 18, 2007



When Shrek married Fiona, the last thing he had in mind was becoming the next King. But when Shrek’s father-in-law, King Harold, suddenly croaks, that is exactly what he faces. Unless Shrek (with the help of his trusted companions Donkey and Puss In Boots) can find a suitable King for Far Far Away, the ogre could be stuck with the job. The most promising candidate, Fiona’s cousin Artie, an underachieving Medieval high school slacker, proves to be more of a challenge than they bargained for.

My favorite animated movie series. I loved the first one and was amazed that the second one lived up to the first one. It will really be a hatrick if the third one is just as good too. At the moment it seems like this movie will be better than both its predecessors.


4. Shoot 'em Up
Release Date: September 7, 2007

A lonely outsider (Clive Owen) living in the shadows of his tragic past, rescues a baby from certain death and finds himself embroiled in a nefarious government plot. En route, he “hooks up” with a prostitute (Monica Bellucci) who specializes in lactation fantasies and who will help him feed and take care of the orphan child. Together they take on the trigger happy gangster politicians (Paul Giamatti, Stephen McHattie), and in a cinematic homage to Serge Leone, John Woo, Jean Pierre Melville shoot ‘em up’s, they bring down the Government and save the day. In the wreckage they find they have accidentally created their own little fractured yet functioning family.

I just want to see Clive Owen and Paul giamatti shoot it out. I saw the premise for this movie around the same time as Smokin' Aces which was one of the best action movies ever. The trailerwas awesome. I love these movies with lots of action sequences.




5. Pathfinder
Release Date: 13 September 2007
PATHFINDER centers on a boy left behind by the Norsemen fifteen years prior to their return to the New World. The child is raised by American Indians. When Norsemen storm the eastern shores, once again waging a barbaric campaign, they slaughter the tribe that adopted him. Now a man of twenty-five, the young man decides to stop the Norsemen’s trail of death and destruction. In the process, he embarks on a journey of self-discovery as he comes to terms with his heritage.

Karl Urban as an Indian warrior of Viking blood. I have always been partial to epic movies. and this movie shows both Native Americans and Vikings in a time when they thrived in this world. It should make for good viewing.

I dare you NOT to smile!

YouTubing

I have been on a YouTube kick lately as anyone perusing my blog might have noticed. The last few days have been spent searching for and viewing Indian songs that had graced my teenage years. Those videos songs of Adnan Sami, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Daler Mehndi, Sukhwinder Singh to name a few.

Anyways I was trying to find the song Mana Janab by Shaan and very shockingly, it had not been uploaded onto Youtube. Googling for it was also unsuccessful. And then I remembered that I had an Indian remix video cd somewhere. So after dusting off my cd wallet I found the song on that cd and uploaded it to youtube. Enjoy!




Click here to go to my Youtube

The Bourne Ultimatum

Deadly handsome men....

The actual reasons why so many women are turning...

Anchorman 300

Cracking sixteen eggs

My humps

I tried posting this directly from youtube but wasnt successful for some reason... This is Alanis Morrisette's version of the Black Eyed Peas song "My Humps".

Don't lie to your mother

Sam invited his mother over for dinner. During the meal his mother couldn't help noticing how beautiful Sam's roommate was. She had long been suspicious of a relationship between Sam and his roommate and this only made her more curious.

Over the course of the evening, while watching the two interact, she started to wonder if there was more between Sam and the roommate than met the eye. Reading his mom's thoughts, Sam volunteered, "I know what you must be thinking, but I assure you, Julie and I are just roommates."

About a week later, Julie came to Sam and said, "Ever since your mother came to dinner, I've been unable to find the beautiful gravy ladle. You don't suppose she took it, do you?"

Sam said, "Well, I doubt it, but I'll write her a letter just to be sure."

So, he sat down and wrote, "Dear Mother, I'm not saying you 'did' take a gravy ladle from my house, and I'm not saying you 'did not' take a gravy ladle. But, the fact remains that one has been missing ever since you were here for dinner."

Several days later, Sam received a letter from his mother which read: "Dear Son, I'm not saying that you 'do' sleep with Julie, and I'm not saying that you 'do not' sleep with Julie. But, the fact remains that if she was sleeping in her own bed, she would have found the gravy ladle by now. Love, Mom."

Lesson of the day: Don't lie to your mother.

Spiderman 3 - final trailer

This is the last trailer to come out before the actual movie.

Walk it out!

I have this friend who emails me crazy and wacky video clips every now and then. They always manage to make me crack a smile n matter how I was feeling at that particular time. So I thought I would upload them on youtube and then share them with you guys so that you will have one more thing to smile at... hopefully...

This video is about walking buns/glutes...

Man-puter?

Flight Announcements

Occasionally, airline attendants make an effort to make the, "In-flight safety lecture" and their other announcements a bit more entertaining. Here are some real examples that have been heard or reported:

1. From a Southwest Airlines employee.... "There may be 50 ways to leave your lover but there are only 4 ways out of this airplane..."

2. Pilot... "Folks, we have reached our cruising altitude now, so I am going to switch the seat belt sign off. Feel free to move about as you wish, but please stay inside the plane till we land... it's a bit cold outside and if you walk on the wings it affects the flight pattern."

3. After landing: "Thank you for flying Delta Business Express. We hope you enjoyed giving us the business as much as we enjoyed taking you for a ride.

4. As the plane landed and was coming to a stop at Washington National, a lone voice comes over the loudspeaker: "Whoa, big fella. WHOA!"

5. After a particularly rough landing during thunderstorms in Memphis, a flight attendant on a Northwest flight announced: "Please take care when opening the overhead compartments because, after a landing like that, sure as hell everything has shifted."

6. From a Southwest Airlines employee... "Welcome aboard Southwest Flight XXX to YYY. To operate your seatbelt, insert the metal tab into the buckle and pull tight. It works just like every other seatbelt and if you don't know how to operate one, you probably shouldn't be out in public unsupervised.

In the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling. Stop screaming, grab the mask and pull it over your face. If you have a small child traveling with you, secure your mask before assisting with theirs. If you are traveling with two small children, decide now which one you love more.

7. Weather at our destination is 50 degrees with some broken clouds but they'll try to have them fixed before we arrive. Thank you, and remember, nobody loves you or your money more, than Southwest Airlines."

8. "Your seat cushions can be used for flotation and in the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments."

9. "As you exit the plane, please make sure to gather all of your belongings. Anything left behind will be distributed evenly among the flight attendants. Please do not leave children or spouses."


10. "Last one off the plane must clean it."

11. From the pilot during his welcome message: "We are pleased to have some of the best flight attendants in the industry... Unfortunately none of them are on this flight...!

12. Overheard on an American Airlines flight into Amarillo, Texas, on a particularly windy and bumpy day. During the final approach, the Captain had really fought to get the plane down. After an extremely hard landing, the Flight Attendant came on the PA and announced, "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Amarillo. Please remain in your seats with your seatbelts fastened while the Captain taxis what's left of our airplane to the gate!"

13. Another flight Attendant's comment on a less than perfect landing: "We ask you to please remain seated as Captain Kangaroo bounces us to the terminal."

14. An airline pilot wrote that on this particular flight he had hammered his ship into the runway really hard. The airline had a policy which required the first officer to stand at the door while the passengers exited, smile, and give them a "Thanks for flying XYZ airline."

He said that in light of his bad landing, he had a hard time looking the passengers in the eye, thinking that someone would have a smart comment. Finally, everyone had gotten off except for this little old lady walking with a cane. She said, "Sonny, mind if I as you a question?"

"Why no, Ma'am," said the pilot, "what is it?"

The little old lady said, "Did we land or were we shot down?"

15. After a real crusher of a landing in Phoenix, the Flight Attendant came on with, "Ladies and Gentlemen, please remain in your seats until Captain Crash and the Crew have brought the aircraft to a screeching halt up against the gate. Once the tire smoke has cleared and the warning bells are silenced, we'll open the door and you can pick your way through the wreckage to the terminal.

16. Part of a Flight Attendant's arrival announcement: "We'd like to thank you folks for flying with us today and the next time you get the insane urge to go blasting through the skies in a pressurized metal tube, we hope you'll think of us here at US Airways."

Kids ideas on love and marriage

1. "If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don't want to do it. It takes too long." -- Glenn, age 7
   

2. "Love is like an avalanche where you have to run for your life." -- John, age 9
   

3. "I think you're supposed to get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn't supposed to be so painful." -- Manuel, age 8
   

4. "No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do with how you smell. That's why perfume and deodorant are so popular." -- Mae, age 9
   

5. "Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too." -- Greg, age 8
   

6. "Once I'm done with kindergarten, I'm going to find me a wife." -- Tom, age 5
   

7. "On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date." -- Mike, 10
   

8. "I'm in favor of love as long as it doesn't happen when Dinosaurs is on television." -- Jill, age 6
   

9. "One of the people has freckles, and so he finds somebody else who has freckles too." -- Andrew, age 6
   

10. "My mother says to look for a man who is kind. That's what I'll do. I'll find somebody who's kinda tall and handsome." -- Carolyn, age 8
    

11. "It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I'm just a kid. I don't need that kind of trouble." -- Kenny, age 7
    

12. "One of you should know how to write a check. Because, even if you have tons of love, there is still going to be a lot of bills." -- Ava, age 8
    

13. "When somebody's been dating for a while, the boy might propose to the girl. He says to her, 'I'll take you for a whole life, or at least until we have kids and get divorced.'" -- Anita, 9
    

14. "I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard enough." -- Regina, age 10
    

15. "Most men are brainless, so you might have to try more than once to find a live one." -- Angie, age 10
    

16. "A man and a woman promise to go through sickness and illness and diseases together." -- Marlon, age 10
    

17. "[Being] single is better . . . for the simple reason that I wouldn't want to change no diapers. Of course, if I did get married, I'd figure something out. I'd just phone my mother and have her come over for some coffee and diaper-changing." -- Kirsten, age 10
    

18. "Love is foolish...but I still might try it sometime." -- Floyd, age 9
    

19. "Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me." -- Dave, age 8

Cat Walking on the Zebra Crossing!

Yeah... cool heading isn't it? But that's about it. It really has no bearing on anything that I actually did... just something I was thinking about today. So let me write about how I came to write that heading.

I was walking home after working an eight hour shift. I was tired, I was sleepy. I was walking and listening to music on my ipod. So really the outside world did not have too much an effect on me. That is until I came to the crossing.

Now this is a very big road with lots of traffic flowing in both directions. You have to press the signal button and wait fifteen minutes before it will allow you to cross. Of course I'm exaggarating here a bit. It wasn't fifteen minutes... more like fourteen and a half... but the point is you have to wait there till the green man lights up. Only then can you cross.

SO the green man comes on and I start across the zebra crossing. Which is when I notice all the cars that are stopped on the side of the crossing. I also notice all the people in those cars. But mostly I notice all those eyes staring at me.

Now I am not very comfortable being stared at. I can honestly say that I don't like it. If I had to chose between being stared at by a dozen eyes and fighting a hungry lion in a colloseum... I would chose the lion. (Of course these days there are no more colloseums, and if you let a lion go hungry for any amount of time, PETA will be more than ready to cut you into pieces and feed you to the said lion.)

When people stare at me, I get all self conscious and then of course I start to do weird stuff. Well, not weird per se, but stuff that you wouldn't expect from a normal person at any normal time. In this instance, I ran down the crossing!

Yes, that doesn't sound too weird now, does it? But that street can be crossed by a normal stroll in about half a minute. For me I think it took five seconds. And I was really nervous when I reached the other side. (Why did Khuscen cross the road? To get away from the eyes that were staring at him...)

Anyways that was when I started to think that it would have been funny if I had strutted my stuff like a model on a cat walk on that crossing and really given those eyes something to gawk at.

And that is when I realised the amazing similarity between a zebra crossing and a cat walk in that they are both named after an animal. In the case of a catwalk, I think it is something about the way a catwalks that is copied by a model to show off her... stuff. And a zebra crossing is... ah... stripes on the road... stripes on the zebra...

Anyways cool heading eh?

Actual Entries on hospital charts - part 2

I somehow only posted half of the entries in that list. so here's the rest...


16. Occasional constant infrequent headaches.

17. Patient was alert and unresponsive.

18. Rectal examination revealed a normal-size thyroid.

19. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until she got a divorce.

20. I saw your patient today, who is still under our car for physical therapy.

21. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.

22. Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.

23. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.

24. The patient was to have a bowel resection. However, he took a job as a stockbroker instead.

25. Skin: somewhat pale, but present.

26. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor.

27. Patient was seen in consultation by Dr. Blank, who felt we should sit
on the abdomen, and I agree.

28. Large brown stool ambulating in the hall.

29. Patient has two teenage children but no other abnormalities.

Actual Entries on hospital charts

1. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.

2. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.

3. On the second day the knee was better, and on the third day it disappeared.

4. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.

5. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.

6. Discharge status: Alive, but without my permission.

7. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year-old male, mentally alert but forgetful.

8. The patient refused autopsy.

9. The patient has no previous history of suicides.

10. Patient has left white blood cells at another hospital.

11. Patient's medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40-pound weight gain in the last three days.

12. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch.

13. She is numb from her toes down.

14. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.

15. The skin was moist and dry.

A video from the past

I was searching for maldvian videos on youtube and look what I came across...




This video is from 1990 when I was but eleven years old and the school kids feature here, I think were from the same grade as me... I am not sure... They are definitelt from the same school and if it was 1990 then they were in same grade as well... I recognise only one of them - Dhonbulhaa hehehe. Dont know her real name and dont know where she is now, but she was in the class next to mine at the time.

Anyways hope you enjoy this video and enjoy any memories that might be dredged up by the association. I know i have.. thanx to the dude who uploaded this video.

Sick Notes

These are real notes written by parents in a Tennessee school district...(spellings have been left intact.)

1. My son is under a doctor's care and should not take PE today. Please execute him.

2. Please exkuce lisa for being absent she was sick and i had her shot.

3. Dear school: please ecsc's john being absent on jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32 and also 33.

4. Please excuse gloria from jim today. She is administrating.

5. Please excuse roland from p.e. for a few days. Yesterday he fell out of a tree and misplaced his hip.

6. John has been absent because he had two teeth taken out of his face.

7. Carlos was absent yesterday because he was playing football. He was hurt in the growing part.

8. Megan could not come to school today because she has been bothered by very close veins.

9. Chris will not be in school cus he has an acre in his side.

10. Please excuse ray friday from school. He has very loose vowels.

11. Please excuse pedro from being absent yesterday. He had (diahre, dyrea, direathe), the sh**s. [note: words in ( )'s were crossed out] .

12. Please excuse tommy for being absent yesterday. He had diarrhea, and his boots leak.

13. Irving was absent yesterday because he missed his bust.

14. Please excuse jimmy for being.It was his father's fault.

15. I kept billie home because she had to go christmas shopping because i don't know what size she wear.

16. Please excuse jennifer fo! R missing school yesterday. We
forgot to get the sunday paper off the porch, and when we found it monday. We thought it was sunday.

17. Sally won't be in school a week from friday. We have to attend her funeral.

18. My daughter was absent yesterday because she was tired. She spent a weekend with the marines.

19. Please excuse jason for being absent yesterday. He had a cold and could not breed well.

20. Please excuse mary for being absent yesterday. She was in bed with gramps.

21. Gloria was absent yesterday as she was having a gangover.

22. Please excuse brenda. She has been sick and under the doctor.

23. Maryann was absent december 11-16, because she had a fever,sore throat, headache and upset stomach. Her sister was also sick,fever an sore throat, her brother had a low grade fever and ached all over. I wasn't the best either, sore throat and fever. There must be something going around, her father even got hot last night.


My favourite is number 14 lol...

New Spidey 3 footage online

NBC.com has a new clip from the movie which is going to premier in 57 days. I just watching it and I honestly have to say that if I had not been hooked on this movie before then I definitely am now. Go there to watch it now...

Oh, but to write...

I know I want to write. I have started writing many times. But it only goes as far as a few lines and I hit a dead end. I just cannot seem to be getting anywhere so I give up. This has been going on for the past month or so. You may have noticed the lack of any real posts on my blog. I have posted a couple of jokes that I found whilst in my foraging aroung the wide world of the web and these have garnered more comments than any of my actual writing. But then again I am not doing this for the comments.

The real reason for my blog is and always has been because I have had an avid interest in stringing words together into sentences. And then the sentences into paragraphs and so on and so forth. My actual goal would be in putting together a short story, a novella, a novel - and not necessarily n that particular order. I just want to get published. But then I do not have any hope in getting any of my stories published when in fact I don't have written any yet.

So this blog was first started as a practice ground for my writing. I planned to write lots and lots. I have also written many times on how I plan to write lots and lots. This being one of those times.

Anyways I have all these ideas and plotlines and stuff rolling around in my head that does need to come out. They have been screaming at me everyday to let them out and I have already started on the actual paperwork that is necessary for these things to be let out of their prison. But you know how it is with all the red tape... so do not expect these to be posted her enytime soon. One day... One fine day...

Post a letter!

Worms

Four worms were placed into four separate jars.

The first worm was put into a jar of alcohol.
The second worm was put into a jar of cigarette smoke.
The third worm was put into a jar of sperm.
The fourth worm was put into a jar of soil.

After one day, these were the results:

The first worm in alcohol - dead.
Second worm in cigarette smoke - dead.
Third worm in sperm - dead.
Fourth worm in soil - alive.

Lesson:

As long as you drink, smoke and have sex, you won't get worms.

A rare medical condition

A man and a woman were sitting beside each other in an airplane. The woman sneezed, took out a tissue, gently wiped her nose, then visibly shuddered for ten to fifteen seconds.

The man went back to his reading. A few minutes later, the woman sneezed again, took a tissue, wiped her nose, then shuddered violently once more.

Assuming that the woman might have a cold, the man was still curious about the shuddering. A few more minutes passed when the woman sneezed yet again. As before, she took a tissue, wiped her nose, her body shaking.

Unable to restrain his curiosity, the man turned to the woman and said, "I couldn't help but notice that you've sneezed three times, wiped your nose and then shuddered violently. Are you ok?"

"I am sorry if I disturbed you, I have a very rare medical condition - whenever I sneeze I have an orgasm."

The man, more than a bit embarrassed, was still curious. "I have never heard of that condition before" he said. "Are you taking anything for it?"

The woman nodded, "Yes... Pepper."

Family Additions

My little brother got married on the 30th of December. I attended the ceremony in spirit if not physically. I have not met my sister in law though I have chatted to her online. I asked for pictures, lots of pictures to be sent immediately to my email. Immediately of course is open to interpretation.

A month passed before i got any pictures. And the four that my brother sent me after taking some time off from his busy, busy schedule was great pictures but left me wanting for more. It has been nearly three years since I last saw any of my family in person. The only way to see them was pictures sent electronically whenever the busy siblings could find the time to send them to me.

Last night however after weeks of pleading my littlest sister managed to send me a lot of pictures from the wedding day and party. It really blew me away. The bride's side of course are all new to me. There were a great many of them and now I gues they are part of my extended family. In a place like Male' I must have seen them at least once so there were a couple of familiar faces though I could not put a name to them.

On the groom's side however, I saw a lot of my most favourite people and their other halves. Two of my cousins got married while I was over here but this was the first time that I actually saw a clear picture of them. Ajoo has started wearing burugaa as well and looked quite beautiful. Almost didnt recognise my aunt. She has changed a bit. Naazuku also looked very different from the skinny, gawky little girl I had last seen. She does not look skinny any more. I guess the new boyfriend is good for her then hehehe.

The bride and groom looked really happy. My brother has always had this way of making everybody around them feel at ease. He is everyone's favourite. In almost all the pictures he is holding hands with everyone. My mom, aunt and cousins. hehe.

Hassan and Fahy, I wish you all the best in whatever your lives shall bring you. May you face your trials and tribulations, hand in hand and with a smile on your face. For together, no mountain is unattainable.

Baby, Don't Cry...

NURSES GAG TINY ORPHANS

ORPHAN babies in a hospital were gagged by cruel nurses fed up with their pitiful cries.

A woman patient used her mobile phone to film one tot with his mouth taped and others with dummies tied to their mouths. When she protested, she was told by nurses to mind her own business.

Now a maternity nurse is suspended for “brutally mistreating” the children. The hospital’s chief doctor was reprimanded for negligence.

Patient Elena Kuritsyna discovered the children at the hospital in Yekaterinburg, north west Russia, after hearing their muffled cries.

The hospital said babies were gagged to stop them spitting out dummies and to spare overworked nurses the need to pick the dummies up.

But state prosecutors said: “This was done to make the children behave more quietly.”

Thousands of Russian babies are abandoned by mothers who are HIV positive. Russia has one of the world’s fastest-growing Aids epidemics.

source: mirror



Sometimes I really hate people.

Al Qufi

I told my family that I am going to name my baby "Goofy". It took a while for them to realise that I was joking. Hehe. Right now "Goofy" is a placeholder since we do not want to know the gender of our baby yet. Most probably even after birth I am thinking that the name is going to be stuck of him/her for all eternity.

Night before last, I was chatting to my sister and the first thing she asked me was :-

Sis: Are you really serious about the name "Goofy".

Me: But of course. Don't you like it?

Sis: NOOO.. I don't. Its a cartoon name.

Me: Well... we lke it.

Sis: What does it mean?

Me: ridiculous; silly; wacky; nutty....

Sis: Oh no.. you shoudl find a name that means something nice like "Malak". It means "angel".

Me: nah we like this...

Sis: But shouldn't we be able to write the name in arabic???

Me: Well we are not going to spell it "Goofy"... It will be spelt "Qufi"... Does that look all rite?

Sis: hehehe

Me: mebbe even put "al" in front so... "Al Qufi Wal Hameed"

Sis: hahaha... Now I know you are not serious...

Robbed!

No, I was not robbed. So those of you who clicked here thinking to read a post about me getting robbed can breathe a little bit easier. Or be disappointed. Whichever.

What happened was that when I got to work this morning I could hear the alarm bell going off. I thought at first it was from my workplace but when I came closer I realised it was not coming from there but from another store, two places down. Well, naturally my curiousity drove me to go and investigate a bit further and what I saw was the front window of the store, with a large gaping hole in it. Someone had broken the glass and gone inside. It didnt look like anything had been taken but I dont work there so I dont really know. Could be the alarm going off had scared the thief away.

I waited a couple of minutes debating whether to call the cops or not. What usually happens at my workplace is that when the alarm goes off the cops are ususally notified automatically and they would have come already. Many a time before when I came to work there had been a note on the door saying that the cops had come to check out an alarm. But there was no police here yet.

Then, one of my coworkers showed up and she called the cops. While we were waiting for them to come, I noticed that two of the flagstones on the pavement nearby were missing and when I looked at the broken window, I could see the stones there. The thief had used the stones as a sort of battering ram.

By then the rest of my cowrokers arrived and we were enjoying this bit of excitement that had come into an otherwise routine morning. The cops arrived about five minutes after we called them and they didn't really want to speak to us I suppose. So we left them to their devices and went inside.

When I finished work today, I saw that they had covered the opening with a large aluminium sheet. And they were already open for business. So I guess that it wasn't a really serious robbery. Still that helped wake me up this morning.

Most Embarrasing Moments

The following are the top four winners from a "Most Embarrassing Moments" contest:

1. "While in line at the bank one afternoon, my toddler decided to release some pent-up energy and ran amok. I was finally able to grab hold of her after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told her that if she did not start behaving 'right now,'
she would be punished.

To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening, 'If you don't let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you kissing Daddy's pee-pee last night!'

The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing! I mustered up the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow. The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me were screams of laughter."

_________

2. "It was the day before my eighteenth birthday. I was living at home, but my parents had gone out for the evening, so I invited my girlfriend over for a romantic night alone. As we lay in bed after making love, we heard the telephone ring downstairs. I suggested to my girlfriend that I give her a piggyback ride to the phone. Since we didn't want to miss the call, we didn't have time to get dressed.

When we got to the bottom of the stairs, the lights suddenly came on and a whole crowd of people yelled, 'SURPRISE!' My entire family--aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, and all my friends were standing there! My girlfriend and I were frozen in a state of shock and embarrassment for what seemed like an eternity. Since then, no one in my family has planned a surprise party again."

__________

3. "One of the funniest "most-embarrassing-moment" stories I've come upon in a long time was about a lady who picked up several items at a discount store. When she finally got up to the checker, she learned that one of her items had no price tag.

Imagine her embarrassment when the checker got on the intercom and boomed out for all the store to hear: 'PRICE CHECK ON LANE THIRTEEN. TAMPAX, SUPERSIZE.'

That was bad enough, but somebody at the rear of the store apparently misunderstood the word 'Tampax' for 'THUMBTACKS.'

In a business like tone, a voice boomed back over the intercom: 'DO YOU WANT THE KIND YOU PUSH IN WITH YOUR THUMB OR THE KIND YOU POUND IN WITH A HAMMER?'"

__________

4. "This one actually happened at Harvard University in October of this year in a biology class; the professor was discussing the high glucose levels found in semen.

A young female (freshman) raised her hand and asked, 'If I understand, you're saying there is a lot of glucose in male semen as in sugar?'

'That's correct,' responded the professor, going on to add statistical information.

Raising her hand again, the girl asked, 'Then why doesn't it taste sweet?'

After a stunned silence, the whole class burst out laughing, the poor girl's face turned bright red, and as she realized exactly what she had inadvertently said (or rather implied), she picked up her books with out a word and walked out of class...and never returned.

However, as she was going out the door, the Professor's reply was classic... Totally straight-faced he answered her question, 'It doesn't taste sweet because the taste-buds for sweetness are on the tip of your tongue and not the back of your throat.''

___________

Small World

It has been a real interesting week of sorts. First, the power outage for four days. Then when the power came back on, the phone lines were out which meant of course that there was no internet. Which meant no blogging. After all those promises made to myself to blog at least once every day, this happens and it has pissed me off a bit. But guess theres nothing else to do but start again and keep blogging every day from now on. The phone line started working yesterday.

I met two maldivians newly arrived in melbourne this week. I found out the first guy was here while I was perusing the Police website and they had an announcement about him going to study in melbourne. I knew the guy because he is a cousin of a very good friend of mine and because he had done his undergraduate studies in Canada on a schol which I myself had unsuccessfully applied for. I was a bit peeved at him then but really have to thank him now. Because if it had not been for him, I would never have met my wife. And I would not be here right now.

Anyways met the guy for drinks before and he is staying at my place for a couple of days till he finds a place of his own. The second guy who come with him to melbourne turned out to be someone I knew as well. When the first guy had told me his name I didnt recognize him but when they came to my place yesterday I was really quite surprised. This guy was also a cousin of another friend of mine. The three of us had been in the same class together and were very close. And now their cousins had arrived in Melbourne at the same time and attending the same uni. Really quite amazing.

Power outage

The temperature reached a record 39 degrees on Tuesday and the fires burning in Victorian bushlands got an added boost. The bushfires burnt a major powerline between Victoria and NSW causing a massive power outage across Melbourne, Geelong and northern and eastern Victoria.

I was watching the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and not enjoying it very much when the power went off in our flat. This had happened last week as well and I was not that worried about it as we got it back pretty quickly that time. So i went to bed and fell asleep a bit only to be woken up about an hour later by a friend who had recently arrived to melbourne and wanted to meet up with. The power was still out.

A quick shower and I was on the bus. Only then did I realise that the blackout had affecte not only us but the whole of the suburb. The traffic lights were not working and there were cops directing traffic. I managed to catch up with my friend and went into the city where they had power and we sat in an air conditioned food caught and had some cold drinks. Around 7:30 I left my friend and decide to busy some subway for dinner considering there was no way we can cook any food without power.

When I got to my flat I found that the power had come back on and we were overjoyed and sat down to dinner while watching the Golden Globes on TV. We had finished dinner and were getting into the show when the real excitement of the day started to happend.

I heard this screeching noise and muted the TV to figure out what it was and couldnt but I coudl hear people moving outside so I opened the door and looked out. There were emergency lights in the front of our apartment block! When I went outside I saw the big fire engines parked on our doorstep and the firemen near our switchboard. Most of our neighbours were out there as well.

What had happened was that our main switchboard was very old. And when we got the power back after the main power outage, it had somehow caused and electrical short and had melted out the wiring and the switchboard had caught fire. The nuber 6 flat had lost power first and he came out and saw the flames and roused number 2 who had thrown water over the flames and then they called the fire department. All this was going on, me and my wife we still had power but then the firement had pulled out the main electric cable and all 10 units were left without power.



This being Australia and Melbourne city, you would think that this problem would be solved quickly but no, it took us four days to get the power back. Four days with cold showers, no hot food, no tea or coffee, no washing clothes, no TV and no internet. The electricity people came on Wednesday and started to work on fixing it... What they actually did was stripped off the old, charred switchboard and left. The reason for that was that they could not get the supplies they needed to fix it.

So wednesday passed and we were told that we could expect power by Sunday... Thursday cam some good news. They had got the supplies and they were putting meters up as well as a new swtchboard. We were told we culd get power tha next day. But it was not to be... The body corporate guy told us that we needed to be home so that the electrician would have easy access to our flats so they could test the power. I was working on friday, so was my wife so we gave him a key so that he could let the guys in.

Friday when I came back from work, there was still no power and the guys came into my flat to do their tests and said that everythign was working fine now. All that was left to be done was for the Electricity suppliers to come by and connect our power. So we waited and waited. And then we learnt that the guys who were supposed to come to our apartment block had been called off for some emergency work at a hospital...

We were told that they might veen ome by later that night but that they didnt need to get into our house. so we went to sleep. Around 1 0;clock I heard this loud banging on my door and woke up slowly. It stopped and it took me a while to realise that it could be the electricity suppliers. So i went to my study where our switches are and turned it on. No power... I got dressed and went out. Our neighbours had power!! I quickly ran downstairs only to find that those people had left already adn we spent that night without power as well.

At 4 am we decided to call Citipower and after five minutes of holding and waiting was passed to an operator who ahd no idea what I was talkign about. It seemed that they did not do what I had just seen them do. It was not them. And then she put me on hold. I was still on hold when the credit on the phone ran out. It was a prepaid so...

ANyways I went to work and left the job to my wife who tried valiently to get through again but with no luck. So she went and found the body corporate guy who was very helpful in calling them up and talking to them, quietly insisting that they infact had come last night while the operater vehemently denied having done so... It took most of the morning but when I got home around 12 we had power back on!

Four days living on takeaway has definitely made us decide not to have takeaway for a long time. We also had a mountian of dirty dishes and dirty clothes that needed to be washed and our flat reeked as we could not clean it. No TV and no Internet was probably a good thign even though we were bored out of our minds. I managed to read one of the books I had been meaning to read for quite sometime. It is really scary to see how dependent we are on electricity. I only hope that nothign like this will happen ever again.

The stork is coming...

As the sun dies, birthing the night,

Darkness reigns without the presence of light,
Except for the little beacon high up in the skies,
Flapping his long wings, onward he flies.

He lights up an otherwise dismal night.
He makes all the wrongs into a right.
As we await his impending arrival
With a cargo essential for our survival.

We have been waiting so long for this
Precious cargo, this bundle of bliss.
This answer to our prayers, this light
For which we have and will continue to fight.

There is still sometime till the coming
But the bees have already started humming.
The flowers are already in full bloom
And we know that he will be here soon.

CHILDISH INSIGHT

NUDITY - I was driving with my three young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and waved. She was stark naked! As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the back seat, "Mom! That lady isn't wearing a seat belt!

MORE NUDITY - A little boy got lost at the YMCA and found himself in the women's locker room. When he was spotted, the room burst into shrieks, with ladies grabbing towels and running for cover. The little boy watched in amazement and then asked, "What's the matter haven't you ever seen a little boy before?"

HONESTY - My son Zachary, 4, came screaming out of the bathroom to tell me he'd dropped his toothbrush in the toilet. So I fished it out and threw it in the garbage. Zachary stood there thinking for a moment, then ran to my bathroom and came out with my toothbrush. He held it up and said with a charming little smile, "We better throw this one out too then, 'cause it fell in the toilet a few days ago.

OPINIONS - On the first day of school, a first grader handed his teacher a note from his mother. The note read, "The opinions expressed by this child are not necessarily those of his parents."

KETCHUP - A woman was trying hard to get the ketchup to come out of the jar. During her struggle the phone rang so she asked her 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. "It's the minister, Mommy," the child said to her mother. Then she added, "Mommy can't come to the phone to talk to you right now. She's hitting the bottle."

ELDERLY - While working for an organisation that delivers lunches to elderly shut-ins, I used to take my 4-year old daughter on my afternoon rounds. The various appliances of old age, particularly the canes, walkers and wheelchairs, unfailingly intrigued her. One day I found her staring at a pair of false teeth soaking in a glass. As I braced myself for the inevitable barrage of questions, she merely turned and whispered, "The tooth fairy will never believe this!"

DRESS-UP - A little girl was watching her parents dress for a party. When she saw her dad donning his tuxedo, she warned, "Daddy, you shouldn't wear that suit." "And why not, darling?" "You know that it always gives you a headache the next morning"

DEATH - While walking along the sidewalk in front of his church, our minister heard the intoning of a prayer that nearly made his collar wilt. Apparently, his 5-year-old son and his playmates had found a dead robin. Feeling that proper burial should be performed, they had secured a small box and cotton batting, then dug a hole and made ready for the disposal of the deceased. The minister's son was chosen to say the appropriate prayers and with sonorous dignity intoned his version of what he thought his Father always said: "Glory be unto the Faaaather, and unto the Sonnn, and into the hole he gooooes."

SCHOOL - A little girl had just finished her first week of school. "I'm just wasting my time," she said to her mother. "I can't read, I can't write and they won't let me talk!"

BIBLE - A little boy opened the big family bible. He was fascinated as he fingered through the old pages. Suddenly, something fell out of the Bible. He picked up the object and looked at it. What he saw was an old leaf that had been pressed in between the pages. "Mama, look what I found," the boy called out." What have you got there, dear?" With astonishment in the young boy's voice, he answered, "I think it's Adam's underwear!"

Say what?

What she said:

Moreland Leader

What I heard:

more than a litre

Sometimes it is hard to hear what someone is saying and you only catch the gist of it. More often than not you end up with some words that sound the same as the ones that have been said but which does not make any sense at all and you are go "Huh??? what??"

My wife was telling me today how we seemed to have stopped getting the "Moreland Leader" which is a community newspaper that gets delivered to our doorstop every monday. I heard "more than a litre" which of course did not mean anything to me but might have so I had to ask again what she was saying and she very patiently repeated what she had said in a slower and more clear voice so that my water logged ears could identify the actual words that had been said.

Now I am not saying that I have a hearing problem because I most certainly do not. It is everybody else's fault for not speaking coherently enough.

The Creepy Crawlies are here!

Looks like the best part of summer is here. The creepy crawlies have started creeping and crawling out of wherever they had hidden for the last few months. I was getting a drink from the fridge when I heard my wife screaming and shouting. When I rushed into the study she was shaking and stuttering and she just brushed past me into the living room. I followed her asking what was wrong and she finally managed to calm down enough to tell me that a cockroach had been crawling on her arm.

I went back into the study and sure enough, on her laptop was the ugliest bug I have ever seen. It looked as if it had descended directly from Kafka's monster himself. The thing was black in most parts with some silver and grey spots all over. It had wings but it did not look intimidated enough to fly away. We stared each other down, not one of us giving the other an inch. From the living room, I could hear my wife shouting, "Kill it! Kill it!"

I went back and got the bug spray and some paper. As soon as it saw the insecticide it tried to crawl away. I was not going to let it escape that easily though. First I tried to grab it with the paper as I did not want spray on my wife's laptop. But the creature proved more elusive, slipping away everytime I thought I had caught it. I finally managed to wear it down and it dropped onto the carpet where I let shot off a barrage of toxic gas.

The thing struggled but was no match for the might of chemical warfare. A few wrigglings later, it had flown off to creepy crawly hell. I picked it up with some paper and took it off to my wife who was still shaking. She did not want to look at it, instead told me to go flush the thing. So I dropped it into the toilet and pushed the lever.

This was probably a scout or the advance party. We can expect more of their kind in the coming days. Not just the cockroaches. The spiders, ants and flies will all be coming out in droves. The only thing we can do is be prepared and make sure we have enough bugspray.

Spiders on drugs

funniest thing i have ever seen hehehe

In the dark

It has been quite an interesting morning. When I went to work I saw the people who were working on the main electricity cables and realised that there might not be any electricity in the store. Sure enough the whole place was darker than dark when I arrived at the door. Deinse was already there waiting in her car. When she saw me, she got out and sat down on the bench.

"Is that a garbage bag?"

I looked at where she was pointing and there was something dark and plump lying near the door. I got up and went to check on it and imagine my surprise as I heard little snores coming from it. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out a pair of boots coming out of the heap. I backe away and told Denise that it was a guy. I was thinking it was some homeless guy just asleep on our doorstep.

As the rest of the guys arrived this guy work up and surprise surprise he was wearing a uniform. Margaret asked him who he was and he replied that he was the security guard!

He was the security guard, guarding the place because the electricity was off and the alarms were not working! And he was asleep on the job! hehehe.

Anyways when we finally went inside, we could not see a damn thing. Which meant we could not do any work. And I was not going to call the boss up. He should have realised that this was going on and called us to let us know so that we could have come later or not at all. We went out the other side and asked the workmen how long it would take and they replied that it might take a couple of hours. What did we do then? We sat down in the dark, on the couches and talked about nothihng for an hour till the department managers arrived. And then we talked for an hour more until she finally decided to call the big boss who told us to go home. He also said that we would be paid for the day. SO that was not quite bad. A day's pay for sitting in the dark telling ghost stories.

More 300 artwork

Empireonline has posted even more 300 posters. There is only 83 days till the movie is released...

Spartan hardass Stelios (Michael Fassbender) as he jumps on some unfortunate Persian.

One of Xerxes’ silver-masked Immortals.

New 300 artwork

Can you tell that I just can't wait for this movie to come out??? I found some new posters for the movie over at Empireonline.

Feast your eyes on three of the main characters –

Gerard Butler’s Leonidas, King of the Spartans, who launches a desperate effort to stop an army of 250,000 with a force of 300.

Lena Headey’s feisty and firey Queen Gorgo, Leonidas’ wife and herself part of the war effort.

Rodrigo Santoro’s chain-attired Xerxes, the Persian Emperor.

And as if that weren’t enough, you also get a glimpse of one of the film’s crazy Persian warriors, the gigantic chained “über-Immortal”, the scariest member of Xerxes’ personal guard, the 10,000 Immortals.

The bracelet - part one

The sun is still asleep when I start on my hourly trip to get to work. It is not easy to get up every morning before 4 am but I have somehow managed to do so for nearly three months now. The day I found the bracelet, started out like any other working day.

I was walking at a well maintained pace that required just enough power to keep from falling asleep but not enough to tire me out (which would lead me to fall asleep too...) I had just stepped on the bridge over the freeway when I notice the sparkling of something on the pavement.

It was a bracelet. You know the type that is sold in most two dollar shops or novelty stores. Cheap imitation jewels set on a stretchy metal band. I picked it up. To this day I am not sure why I did so. It was probably my cat like curiosity which is going to get me killed one day... and on this day it nearly did... But I am getting ahead of myself.

I kept walking while looking over the bracelet. I was wondering who had dropped it and whether there was any way I could figure out who it was so that I could return it to her. Her! Of course it belongs to a girl. No self respecting male would ever own one of those things. There were no initials on the inside of the bracelet. No identifying marks or even a serial number. It was a cheap imitation. They do not come with serial numbers.

So without thinking what I was doing I slipped my left wrist into the bracelet. I was almost at the end of the bridge. On any other day there would still be ten more minutes of walking up to the tram stop. But on that day, when I tried on the bracelet, I suddenly found myself standing at the tram stop.

I do not remember walking those ten minutes from the bridge to the tram stop. Usually I time my walks so that I get to the tram stop just minutes before the tram comes. That day I had to wait ten minutes before the tram came and I hopped on it; the bracelet was still on my left wrist.

Quote for the day

This is a good spin on an "old saying" ...

The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be.

- Unknown

Blog overhaul for 2007

I had been thinking of changing the look of my blog for sometime now.. I liked the stripey template I have been using for the past few months which I found at eris design. That site has for some reason gone down and I had been trying to change the three column look into a two column one but it didnt work out.

Anyways I picked the minima black template that I used when I first started this blog sometime ago. With the new blogger page elements it is really easy to bring about the changes that I want to make to the template. So for the time being I am going to have a completely minimal black template... It is however going to be improved upon just as soon as I figure out how to add the things that I want to add to it.. Keep watching this blog!

The year that was 2006

Today is the last day of 2006 and it has been a year of many ups and downs for me; the ups of course always outnumber the downs. It is also time again for resolutions to be made which do not have to be followed through but it is always fun to make them.

First of all this is my one hundredth post in this blog. 2006 marks a time when I seriously started blogging and though I have not managed to keep to the promise of a post a day, I still managed to write bits and pieces here and there. I celebrate the blog's anniversary in 2006 also. For 2007 I resolve to write more articles and seriously start on my fiction writing.

I celebrated my first wedding anniversary in 2006 which was the happiest day of the year and seriously competing for the happiest day of my life. We also got the happy news that my wife is pregnant which is awesome! So 2007 will herald the birth of my first child and I resolve to get all the stuff that needs to be done by that time, done and over with.

I started going to a job for the first time this year. I do not like the work very much but it brings in money and I do not hate it too much. The co-workers are nice enough and I have managed to somehow get on the good side of most of them so much that I have been offered further training which could in fact lead to more hours which would mean more money... There is just one person who I have taken an intense dislike to. He is rude and arrogant and all of my fellow coworkers do not like him. Most of the days I am at work are spent trying to make sure I do not have much contact with him. Hopefully 2007 will find me having more hours at work or a new job that I like better...

I actually managed to lose 10 kilos during 2006 which is quite a feat. I used to weigh about 90 kilos before ramadan and the start of work combined to provide a weight loss program so that by the end of ramadan I weighed 80 kilos. I still weigh 80 and in 2007, I resolve to lose a further 10 kilos and go down to 70. Maybe get some more muscle tone as well. If I am going to be running around after a kid I will need to be healthy.

I have this guitar which I bought from a friend in 2004. My wife bought me a beginners book to guitar playing and a tuner, all of which has been gathering dust in some corner of the flat. last year I made a resolution to learn how to play the guitar but did not follow through so for 2007 I make the same resolution but to follow through this time.

2006 also had the usual marriages, births and deaths of those close to me.

My Aunt passed away(bless her soul!), Naimbe's mom passed away as well.

Yuli and Mua became parents of a baby girl. Shahyn and Nashitha became parents of a baby boy. Nazim got married to Shim's sister. These people are from the Bendigo clan with whom I spent my Uni days.

My baby brother tied the knot as well on friday. Congrats Hassan and Fahy! Hope you two have a fun life together.


The resolutions for 2007

*Write the stories that are (and have been for sometime) floating around my head. Try and get some of these published.

*Make all the necessary preparations for the arrival of my child and do everything in my power to make it as easy a time as possible for my wife.

*Lose a further 10 kilos and build up some muscle.

*Learn to play the guitar.

*Look for a better job or at least try and get some more hours at the job that I already have.

Eid mubarak and Happy New Year to everybody!

Expecting

Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Marvel's first family of superheroes, The Fantastic Four, meets their greatest challenge yet in "Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer" as the enigmatic, intergalactic herald, The Silver Surfer, comes to Earth to prepare it for destruction. As the Silver Surfer races around the globe wreaking havoc, Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben must unravel the mystery of the Silver Surfer and confront the surprising return of their mortal enemy, Dr. Doom, before all hope is lost.


watch the trailer! looks great

Fantastic Four: Rise of the SilverSurfer
Uploaded by Umbrax

New TMNT pics

Leonardo gets ready for a fight.

The garden fight: Karai and the Foot Ninja prepare to face the Turtles.

The Turtles, Splinter, April and Casey reflect on the battle they've just fought.

Talking about the weather

Melbourne's crazy weather continues as today it got pretty cold even though this is the middle of summer and only three days ago it was 40 degrees celcius. The victoria region sees this cold front as a belssing as it helps them with the fires that have been burning out of control all over victoria...

Second time it has hailed and i got another video which im going to post here. enjoy!

Merry Christmas

Transformers trailer

This looks awesome!

Mr. Nice Guy

Wii VS PS3

Smokin' Aces new trailer

The Wheels of Life

I am still in the bicycle phase...

300 latest trailer

This just keeps getting better and better...

TMNT

I have always been a fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. First there was the cartoons and then there was the live action movies. At that time I did not know there were comic books on the characters. This new animated movie which is coming out on 30 March 2007 will derive its tone from the original comic-book series and will be slightly grittier than the previous live-action pictures. The animation will be created in Imagi's state-of-the art facility in Hong Kong.

View from the Animal Womb

A couple of weeks back I saw these amazing pictures of animals still in their wombs when they showed it on the news. Today I cam across the pictures again and I googled and found that these pictures are going to be in a movie showing on the National Geographic Channel in December. The two hour movie will show tiny pink elephant embryos, a teensy dog fetus with glowing blue eyes, and mini-dolphins swimming in their mother's belly. It will show in the United States on December 10 and in Germany on Christmas Day.

The film is made possible using technology developed at the beginning of the decade by veterinary scientist Thomas Hildebrandt, from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin. In addition to providing clear 3D images, his team was able to advance ultrasound techniques so as to make it possible to penetrate further than the 15 centimeters technology had allowed.

The result is a look inside the wombs of a wide variety of mammals, even including giants like elephants. Hildebrandt's system involves inserting an ultrasound scanner's head into the empty intestine of the pregnant elephant. When the fetus is visible, the ultrasound then goes into 3D mode, which produces up to 70 cross sections, which are then pieced together by a computer.

And viola! One can see the tiny eyes, trunk and wrinkles of elephant fetuses as young as 17 weeks. The technology is perfect for vets and for researchers.

Here are some of the pictures;

The Sun Sleeps in my Bed

I met a man who asked me
"Why are your arms so white?"
I told him I have sunscreen on.
He replied, "But its still night..."

I told him that was true; he asked me,
"Why are there sunglasses on your head?"
I told him the reason for all this is because
You see the sun, she sleeps in my bed!

Yes the sun sleeps in my bed!
Outrageous as it sounds, it is true!
She sleeps in my bed each night
And keeps me warm through and through!

The sunscreen keeps me from being burnt
By her brilliant heat; the glow she radiates,
Requires the use of sunglasses, though I am
Tempted to go without and leave it to the fates.

The man told me "you are very lucky!"
I replied that I am aware of what he said.
At the end of the day, when everyone sleeps
The sun, she goes to sleep in my bed!

Pic of the day

Old Boy

I was at a friend's house sometime ago when he showed me some of the movies that he had and he showed me a trailer for a hindi movie called "Zinda" which starred Sanjay Dutt. Now the trailer actually brough back memories of another movie trailer that I had seen sometime ago and since Bollywood is notorious for taking more than its share of movie ideas from hollywood and other countries I was reminded of this movie "Oldboy" which I had heard a lot about some years ago.

This morning I finally got to watch "oldboy" and it was by far the best movie I had seen in quite a while. The only disappointment was at the very end of the movie; the last scene should not have been there and they should have just stopped the movie at the point where the "villain" dies after revealing everything. I am not going to go into details here for fear of spoiling things for those who havent watched the movie yet. But suffice to say that this is a movie worth watching.

As for the Indian version, I am hearing news that the producers are facing a lawsuit for "borrowing" the storyline from Oldboy scene to scene. Those who want to can read an indepth comparision of Oldboy and Zinda from wikipedia. I cannot do the comparision as I have not watched the indian version. And I don't have any intention of doing that anytime sooner.

Hail

Last wednesday was a day for freaky weather here in melbourne. This is a video I shot with my digital camera out of the indow in my apartment. It is five clips, each 30 seconds long and all have been joined together to make this video.

Spidey 3 New Trailer

Bollywood in Melbourne

They are filming a bollywood movie in Melbourne at the moment and who else but the "great" Shah Rukh Khan is starring in it. They are looking for crowds for the hockey matches that are going to be staged for the movie. The hockey stadium where they are filming is pretty close to where I am residing and yesterday when my wife and I took the tram upto the city we passed the stadium. I was expecting lots of people there but there was only a handful on the audience stages. There were a lot of film crew and they were filming a India vs Australia match I think. Sort of like a hockey world cup.

Anyways if you are living in or around Melbourne and like to be part of this movie take a look at the flyer and go there. They are filming till the end of November so there is still some time.

For Dina...

300 trailer

Take a look at the 300 trailer! It looks so frigging good. I cannot wait for this movie to come out...

Goodness, gracious, great balls of ...

It was a night much like any other night; a little cold. There was a slight wind outside but that did not bother me as I was snug inside my little apartment, lounging on my couch and watching TV. A half empty can of coke was on the table in fornt of me. It was almost fizzied out now and I could not be bothered finishing it. There was something showing on TV, as well but I wasn't paying that much attention to it. No, my attention was firmly fixed on the small ball of light floating in front of my eyes.

Now this might seem like a fantastic thing but for some reason, I wasn't really awestruck or even mildly shocked. It just seemed like a routine, everyday occurence. Probably because I was in that place where boredom met up with dreamland and I figured I had fallen asleep and this was happening in my dreams. How it had appeared in my room, where it had come from and the reason for its appearance - these questions did not really occur to me. All I knew was that it was suddenly there and provided a fleeting distraction from my daily routine. So I sat there on the couch with my eyes following the slow movements of this lightball.

When I say lightball, I do mean a lightball. It surely wasn't a fireball and I could not feel any heat radiating from it. But then again, I figured I was dreaming so I would not be able to feel anything. It looked much like a star would, if you could see it a bit more closely than the billions of light years away. Maybe from half a million light years... I don't know... I don't know much about astronomy.

It would seem reasonable to infer that staring at this ball of light for so long would hurt my eyes somewhat but again for some reason, I was able to monitor its movements without any strain on my eyes. Another reason to assume that the sandman had visited me.

The ball of light continued its slow journey around my room. It did not seem to have any purpose to its wanderings; neither a goal nor a destination. It appeared to be as bored as I was and was just doing a slow dance. I took off the hat I had on and as the ball of light passed close to me, made a swing at it.

I don't really know what I was hoping to accomplish with that. Somehow the ball of light ended in my hat and I looked down at it for a moment and then put it back on my head. Why? I don't know! This might be a dream, remember? I cannot be held accountable for the things I do in my dreams. Anyways it didn't feel any different wearing that ball of light on my head. When after sometime, I took off my hat and looked inside, it had disappeared... and I went back to watching TV! Simpsons was on!

I am still not sure whether that was a dream or not. I do know that every night around 8 o'clock I get these head splitting migraines but surely that cannot be caused by wearing a ball of light on your head... Could it?

Impossible Pie

Since I am fasting I get to sit in the tea room at work and do nothing. I would have worked through the lunch break but I don't get paid for it so I would rather relax for the half hour. I found this recipe in one of the women's magazines that are lying around there (since it is mostly women I work with..) and thought that it sounded good and easy enough for me to make. I had yet to make something good during this ramadan and so I cut out the recipe and brought it home with me. The recipe says it takes 10 minutes for preparation. I took half an hour. It is supposed to cook in 45 minutes but after an hour it was burnt on the top and liquid in the inside. Since we were fed up by then we just scraped off the cooked top part and had it with ice cream and let me say that that was the best thing I have tasted in quite a long time. I am going to try and make it again soon and hopefully this time I will be able to cook it thoroughly. But you have to really agree with its name. It really is impossible but I will still have fun trying.

impossible pie

• 1/2 cup plain flour
• 1 cup caster sugar
• 1 cup dessicated coconut
• 2 cups milk
• 440g can crushed pineapple, drained
• 4 eggs beaten lightly
• 125g butter, melted
• 1/4 cup flaked almonds
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ice-cream, to serve

1. Preheat oven to moderate, 180 degrees celsius. Lightly grease a 24cm pie plate.
2. Sift flour into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and coconut.
   
3. In another bowl, combine all the remaining ingredients. Blend into dry ingredients until well combined.
4. Pour mixture into prepared pie plate. Bake for 40-45 minutes until firm and golden. Serve warm with ice cream.
   

Dropping Kilos

To say that my weight has fluctuated over the years will be an understatement. When I was in Primary school I was reasonably thin, almost skinny but I was a kid then. In my secondary years I started to pile on the kilos until I did my O'levels where I was weighing in at 70 kilos and wearing size 34 pants. I had a beer belly even though beer was not available. Once I started higher secondary education and began to notice the girls in my class I decided finally to do soemthing about my weight.

Thus began the jogging and exercising with friends. I even joined a gym, Muscleload with another friend and I was down to a very comfortable weight when I went to India in 1997 on a sociology trip which ended just as ramadan began which meant my gym and the exercising came to a halt and i began slowly gaining the weight that I had lost.

At the end of my education I was drafted into the NSS and during the four months of my recruit training I was the fittest I had ever been. I was a mere 60 kilos and had good muscle tone (for the first time in my life which is probably the only thing I will thank the training regiment for...) The next four years I managed to hold my weight between 60 and 65. Thus when I left for Australia in the beginning of 2003 I was 65 kilos and looking slender.

Somehow the three years in Australia with all the beef and chicken and lamb (and some kangaroo) I managed to pile on more than 20 kilos . When I finally got a scale after moving into my new apartment with my new wife I found that I weighed in at 88 kilos. This made me a bit sad after all that I had gone through so my wife and me decided to play a little game of "The biggest Loser." This didnt really work that well as I lost only 2.4 kilos over 22 weeks. Then I started working and with the combined fasting of ramdan I have managed to lose 6.4 kilos over the last 4 weeks. This morning when I weighed myself I found I was 80 kilos.

Now I just have to start exercising regularly so that I continue to lose weight and gain some muscle tone again and reach my target weight of 65 kilos. Wish me luck!

Weird Al Yankovic - White and Nerdy

Weird Al spoofs Chamillionaire's Riding Dirty. LOL